"You damn Goths!" Muhammad Khan of the Golden Horde slammed his fist on the table in front of him, enraged, after finally learning of Bosporus's actions to occupy the Sea of Azov coast.
Because he had traveled far to the Volga River basin to fight, he did not learn until late June, nearly a month after the events on the Eastern European Great Plains, that the Bosphorus Despotate, which had just severed its nominal tributary relationship, had brazenly launched an attack.
They had simultaneously assaulted from both sea and land along the border, occupying a large area of the Sea of Azov coastline, almost turning the Khanate into a landlocked country.
Muhammad Khan was furious about this: when did the Goths dare to ride on his head?!
Although he knew that the opposing monarch had achieved significant military successes in Asia Minor and the Caucasus during this period, the Golden Horde believed that the Tatar Mongolians' cavalry mobility on the steppes was still the most formidable force in the entire Eastern Europe region.
Even Lithuania, a long-time adversary of the Khanate, had recruited many orthodox Tatars to counter the cavalry forces of Ulus.
"Mere Romans, come! We'll kill and bury you!" Muhammad Khan waved his hand, dispatching two thousand cavalrymen and ordering them to cooperate with the Khanate's garrisons left on the Great Plains to counterattack Bosporus.
If successful, they would also take back the Great Plains and even the Northern Crimea region under Bosporus's control.
As for the Kazan Khanate, which he was personally dealing with at the moment, Muhammad Khan considered them to be nothing more than a laughable bunch of petty thieves.
Large-scale divisions had occurred in the history of the Golden Horde, and hadn't the White Horde of the Orda line and the Blue Horde of the Shayban line eventually submitted to the Golden Horde…
Wait, didn't Abul Khayr of the Shayban line, a descendant of Uzbeg Khan, break away from the Blue Horde decades ago to form the Uzbek Khanate and establish his own Khanate!?
"It's fine, it's fine. Didn't the Crimean Khanate of the Giray line eventually collapse? This time, the Kazan Khanate will surely meet the same end." Muhammad Khan could only console himself with the story of Haji Giray.
However, he seemed to have forgotten that the Crimean Khanate's failed independence was his predecessor's affair, and if it hadn't been for the help of the Theodoro Principality at the time, Sarai alone would have been utterly unable to suppress the local forces.
By the time the Golden Horde finally made a serious response, Bosporus had completely occupied all of the Sea of Azov coastal areas under the Golden Horde Khanate, with the exception of the small town of Adamakha.
Since the Golden Horde's naval power in the region was practically negligible, having only recently helped suppress the Crimean Khanate a few years prior, the Bosporus Army, under Manuel's command, easily occupied a large stretch of coastline.
At the same time, because Bosporus had reached a prior agreement with Venice, not only did no Bosporus soldiers intrude into their Black Sea colony of Tana, but there were no incidents whatsoever.
In response, the Venetians opened their ports to the Bosporus Romans and simultaneously profited handsomely by selling supplies to both warring parties at inflated prices.
Manuel was mostly helpless in this regard and could only order his entire army to avoid purchasing the supplies that the Venetians had temporarily raised prices on.
After some time, the Black Sea consul had no choice but to humble himself, abandoning this profiteering behavior of price gouging, and instead controlled prices within a range acceptable to the other party.
By the time the Golden Horde was finally mobilizing proper troops to stop Bosporus, the Bosporus Army had already engaged in several rounds of combat with the Golden Horde garrisons, Tatar tribes, and wandering bandits on the steppe, initially solidifying their military occupation of the area.
Now, Manuel finally had the leisure to dispatch troops to capture Adamakha, the Golden Horde's last coastal area on the Sea of Azov.
Adamakha had already appeared in Caesar's sights during the previous Crimean War.
Despite the small town being largely obscure under the Tatars' poor governance and nomadic administration, serving mainly as a defensive line, its future as the Russian Empire's Black Sea port of Mariupol still drew his attention to the small city, casting an extraordinary gaze upon it.
And as he freed up his hands to ceremoniously prepare to take Adamakha, intelligence from the Dark Department's informants within the Golden Horde quickly reached him, detailing the Khanate's impending troop deployment against him.
"No, is this Muhammad Khan ignoring Kazan? I'm just trying to seize your coastline, but the Volga Bulgarians want you to collapse, don't they?" Upon receiving this intelligence, Manuel's entire face was so tense it looked like a sweating soybean.
Are these Tatars overly confident, or do they completely lack a sense of priority?
But since they want to come, then they should be prepared to have the Khanate's teeth shattered.
As for Adamakha city, forget about those ceremonial things, just attack directly!
On the morning of July 7th, three thousand well-prepared Bosporus ground troops advanced on Adamakha in two columns, with an additional seven hundred sailors on naval warships, collectively pressuring the small city.
As for the occupied coastal areas, garrisons composed of farmer-soldiers and conscripts were stationed at various strategic points to guard against Tatar subversion of the occupied territory's owners.
Early that morning, the siege began with volleys of stone projectiles fired from cannons.
Since Manuel needed to concentrate his forces for the major decisive battle that would soon follow, he ordered that friendly casualties be avoided as much as possible during this siege.
Thus, cannons from both sea and land mercilessly poured fire onto the city walls.
"No, isn't this just a broken city for dog-bastards? They're even using cannons, are the Romans sick?" The deputy General of the defenders, disoriented by the enemy's bombardment, was on the verge of tears.
As for the General? He had been struck in a vital spot by rocks churned up by the stone projectiles and died on the spot.
After three quarters of an hour of continuous bombardment, the Bosporus side finally ceased its extensive shelling and began to send ground troops to scale and occupy the city.
Due to the previous bombardment, the mud-and-stone walls of Adamakha, which had been ravaged by the war five years prior, were largely destroyed, so the attacking forces suffered virtually no significant losses.
Just a few minutes later, not to be outdone, the navy also dispatched several teams of sailors, shouting slogans like "For Caesar, move quickly!" and eagerly rushed into the city, eager to share in the spoils of war.
Regarding this scene, Caesar chose to temporarily indulge his soldiers so that they would face the upcoming major battle in a more invigorated state.
However, at the same time, he also began to consider whether he should properly train a well-disciplined navy, allowing them not only to blockade coastlines but also to genuinely face the battles they were responsible for.
In any case, under the attack of the high-spirited Bosporus Army, Adamakha city essentially changed hands in less than three hours.
The Autocratic State's next target also shifted to the main force that the Golden Horde Khanate was about to dispatch.